Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy, Stephen Leacock [best mobile ebook reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Stephen Leacock
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“Barbara!” he exclaimed.
“Radnor,” she murmured.
You will be pleased to learn that this is the second son of the Marquis, Viscount Radnor, just returned from a reading tour in Wales.
P. S. We do not know what he read, so we enclose a file of Welsh newspapers to date.
JULY INSTALMENTWe regret to inform you that the Marquis of Slush has disinherited his son. We grieve to state that Viscount Radnor has sworn that he will never ask for Miss Plynlimmon’s hand till he has a fortune equal to her own. Meantime, we are sorry to say, he proposes to work.
AUGUST INSTALMENTThe Viscount is seeking employment.
SEPTEMBER INSTALMENTThe Viscount is looking for work.
OCTOBER INSTALMENTThe Viscount is hunting for a job.
NOVEMBER INSTALMENTWe are most happy to inform you that Miss Plynlimmon has saved the situation. Determined to be worthy of the generous love of Viscount Radnor, she has arranged to convey her entire fortune to the old family lawyer who acts as her trustee. She will thus become as poor as the Viscount and they can marry. The scene with the old lawyer who breaks into tears on receiving the fortune, swearing to hold and cherish it as his own is very touching. Meantime, as the Viscount is hunting for a job, we enclose a list of advertisements under the heading Help Wanted—Males.
DECEMBER INSTALMENTYou will be very gratified to learn that the fortunes of Miss Barbara Plynlimmon have come to a most pleasing termination. Her marriage with the Viscount Radnor was celebrated very quietly on page 231. (We enclose a list of the principal churches in London.) No one was present except the old family lawyer, who was moved to tears at the sight of the bright, trusting bride, and the clergyman who wept at the sight of the cheque given him by the Viscount. After the ceremony the old trustee took Lord and Lady Radnor to a small wedding breakfast at an hotel (we enclose a list). During the breakfast a sudden faintness (for which we had been watching for ten pages) overcame him. He sank back in his chair, gasping. Lord and Lady Radnor rushed to him and sought in vain to tighten his necktie. He expired under their care, having just time to indicate in his pocket a will leaving them his entire wealth.
This had hardly happened when a messenger brought news to the Viscount that his brother, Lord Fitz-buse had been killed in the hunting field, and that he (meaning him, himself) had now succeeded to the title. Lord and Lady Fitz-buse had hardly time to reach the town house of the family when they learned that owing to the sudden death of the old Marquis (also, we believe, in the hunting field), they had become the Marquis and the Marchioness of Slush.
The Marquis and the Marchioness of Slush are still living in their ancestral home in London. Their lives are an example to all their tenantry in Piccadilly, the Strand and elsewhere.
CONCLUDING NOTEDear Mr. Gulch:
We beg to acknowledge with many thanks your cheque for one thousand dollars.
We regret to learn that you have not been able to find time to read our digest of the serial story placed with us at your order. But we note with pleasure that you propose to have the “essential points” of our digest “boiled down” by one of the business experts of your office.
Awaiting your commands,
We remain, etc., etc.
X.—SPEEDING UP BUSINESS
We were sitting at our editorial desk in our inner room, quietly writing up our week’s poetry, when a stranger looked in upon us.
He came in with a burst,—like the entry of the hero of western drama coming in out of a snowstorm. His manner was all excitement. “Sit down,” we said, in our grave, courteous way. “Sit down!” he exclaimed, “certainly not! Are you aware of the amount of time and energy that are being wasted in American business by the practice of perpetually sitting down and standing up again? Do you realize that every time you sit down and stand up you make a dead lift of”—he looked at us,—“two hundred and fifty pounds? Did you ever reflect that every time you sit down you have to get up again?” “Never,” we said quietly, “we never thought of it.” “You didn’t!” he sneered. “No, you’d rather go on lifting 250 pounds through two feet,—an average of 500 foot-pounds, practically 62 kilowatts of wasted power. Do you know that by merely hitching a pulley to the back of your neck you could generate enough power to light your whole office?”
We hung our heads. Simple as the thing was, we had never thought of it. “Very good,” said the Stranger. “Now, all American business men are like you. They don’t think,—do you understand me? They don’t think.”
We realized the truth of it at once. We had never thought. Perhaps we didn’t even know how.
“Now, I tell you,” continued our visitor, speaking rapidly and with a light of wild enthusiasm in his face, “I’m out for a new campaign,—efficiency in business—speeding things up—better organization.”
“But surely,” we said, musingly, “we have seen something about this lately in the papers?” “Seen it, sir,” he exclaimed, “I should say so. It’s everywhere. It’s a new movement. It’s in the air. Has it never struck you how a thing like this can be seen in the air?”
Here again we were at fault. In all our lives we had never seen anything in the air. We had never even looked there. “Now,” continued the Stranger, “I want your paper to help. I want you to join in. I want you to give publicity.”
“Assuredly,” we said, with our old-fashioned politeness. “Anything which concerns the welfare, the progress, if one may so phrase it—” “Stop,” said the visitor. “You talk too much. You’re prosy. Don’t talk. Listen to me. Try and fix your mind on what I am about to say.”
We fixed it. The Stranger’s manner became somewhat calmer. “I am heading,” he said, “the new American efficiency movement. I have
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